League of Doctors
by The Threat
Summary: A sequel to my earlier 'League of Critics', this story will feature some of fiction's most beloved doctors.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is owned by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Other than the narrator of this story, not one character used here is mine.

* * *

September 3rd, 2009, Whirl Islands:

While running through all the tunnels and gaps that this cave provided, I remembered what it was that got me in this situation. So about a year ago, I witnessed a battle between a Nerd and a Critic, during something called Celebrity Deathmatch, which as the name implies is a fight to the death. I stopped the fight, and as a way of gratitude, both the Nerd and the Critic gave me their personal e-mail addresses. But although I saved the two of them, they still had this urge to kill one another. If I were to befriend the both of them, a moment will come that I would have to pick sides. To avoid that, when they gave me their info, I gave them a false e-mail address. I'll never contact them, and they'll never be able to contact me. Little did I know that I was to meet the two of them, and many others, again, as some mad doctor had brainwashed an entire group of self-proclaimed critics to start taking over the entertainment industry, and I was asked to help put a group of people together to fight them. They stopped wanting to take over the industry, and said doctor was arrested. But that was when the Critic remembered me giving him a false e-mail address, which angered everyone else as well (because I would lecture them on how to be better people, yet lie to them myself).

So that's what brought me on this island. Although island is the wrong word, as it was more some kind of a mountain that stuck out of the ocean, and I was in a cave, being chased by both the critics and the people I had assembled to fight them. This is what you get from trying to help people. Unfortunately, I was suffering from a sleep deprivation, which slowed me down too much. I would lie down to sleep, but then I risk being caught by these people. I could try and find a place to hide, but I feared that I might not find one in time. And even if I did, it is possible that I snore and I'm not aware of it, so I'd give myself away. This was the moment when I, quite literally, found an answer.

Before me, there was something that looked like a phone booth. Since I was that tired, my sight was blurred, so I couldn't be sure of what it really was, but its shape and size made it seem like a phone booth. The really weird part wasn't the fact that it was blue and not made out of glass, but since this island is uninhabited, why would there be anything like a phone booth here? Whatever the reason, if my chasers were to see this, they'd immediately think I'd be stupid too hide in this because it sticks out too much. As such, they'd think I'd have ignored it and not look for me here. It was a gamble, but my mind wasn't up for trying to think of alternatives, so I opened its doors and entered. Upon entering, I immediately turned back to the doors. I kept them close together, so it would look like they were shut from the outside, but were actually leaving enough room for me to peek through. Doing so, I saw my chasers gaining on this booth and... pass right by it, as though they didn't even see it. This, I thought, was funny. They would make a lot of remarks on how several film directors, story writers and game developers are too stupid to do anything, yet they wouldn't even notice a phone booth on an uninhabited island? But I was too tired to give it any more thought. After a while, all my chasers had passed by, after which I shut these doors completely and decided to lean myself against the back of this booth and let myself fall asleep. As I did so, I had one split second to realized one mistake I made. As I was in a hurry, I didn't take my time to see how deep this booth went, so I underestimated the distance between where I stood and the back of this booth. So as I let myself fall, there wasn't a wall to catch me, so I fell flat on the floor, hitting my head hard.


	2. Chapter 2

I woke at the sound of a hoarse voice. It said: "... sleep for well over an entire day."

"From the looks of it..." another voice, that sounded deeper and more controlled replied, "... he had already had too little sleep. Add the fall on his head, and here's the result."

"What I can't understand is how he got inside." a higher pitched one, possibly female, sounded.

They continued talking, but it was around then that I decided to try and get up so I didn't pay much attention to what they were saying. When I tried, I felt a pain on the back of my head. I touched the back of my head. I didn't feel a bump, so I guessed it wasn't as serious as those voices made it sound.

"He's awake." that high-pitched voice said.

I turned to look. There were three others in the room. I was right to think that one of the voices I heard belonged to a woman. Other than her, there was one man with white hair, wearing a lab coat, and another man that stood quite stiff and appeared relatively younger than the other two, though still older than me.

"You took quite a fall there." the white-haired man said.

"Who are you?" I asked them.

After asking, I took a quick look around. The room appeared to be quite like any other room you'd find. There was a bed, there was a closet, a desk, a swivel chair,... it didn't look like a hospital room. I was about to ask where I was, but that was when the white-haired man decided to answer my first question.

"I'm sorry." he apologised, "I'm doctor Emmet Brown. I found you along with doctor Sattler here."

He pointed to the woman, so I assumed that was this doctor Sattler he was referring to.

"Doctor?" I questioned.

"Not medical doctors, as you have probably noticed." the younger man said.

Funny he said that, because I did think this room didn't belong to a hospital, so I already thought that these two, although they called themselves doctors, weren't medical ones. I tried getting out of bed, which didn't prove to be easy. If I'm to believe their earlier conversation, I slept for well over a day, so my legs felt quite numb, making it difficult for me to stand up.

Sattler came to the rescue, by catching me before I fell: "Easy, you still need to adapt a little."

"Which won't help by letting him sit down." the young man said.

"Er..." I started, "... where am I?"

"You mean... you don't know where you are?" Brown asked.

"Well, I can't be on Whirl Islands still, obviously." I remarked, cynically.

"Whirl Islands?" the young man questioned, "I didn't know there were many inhabitants there."

"Yeah... it's a complicated story." I answered him, but that's when I realized something else, "Wait, what brought you guys to Whirl Islands anyway?"

"He must've tested this technique of his somewhere uninhabited, in case something went wrong." Sattler explained, though not to me.

"Must be." Brown agreed.

"He?" I asked.

"You don't know?" the young man asked, although he didn't sound very inquisitive.

"You can't tell him now." Sattler told him, "I mean, being here is already as confusing as it is."

The young man seemed to make a bow: "As you wish."

"I'm sorry." I started, "But if you think you can spare me of... whatever it is your not telling me, hoping not to confuse me any more, you're not doing a very good job at it."

"Perhaps it is best if we take this one step at a time." the young man suggested.

"Sounds alright to me." Brown agreed.

"Why won't you two take your seats." the young man suggested, "I'll take care of him."

"Seats?" suddenly, he made it seem as though I was inside some kind of theatre.

"Alright." Sattler agreed to that, and Brown nodded, so together they left.

The young man lead me outside the room, into the hallway. If I was inside some kind of theatre, it wasn't one that dated back to the 18th century, or older. The walls and the floor were grey, there were these perfectly circular shaped dents in the walls, there were these lights in the ceiling, rather than bulbs sticking out, or in some way decorated... the entire interior gave the impression of being something from a science fiction story than anything else. I didn't know where this young man was taking me to, but on our way there, we came across another man. He looked to be around his forties, wore a business suit, and had long hair, though he was balding.

"Doctor Lecter." the man spoke to the young man, "How's your patient."

He looked at me when he said "patient", so I could assume he meant me. But that wasn't what bothered me. Why did the name "Lecter" sound so familiar?

"Good day, doctor Crane." the young man, Lecter, replied, "He got here by accident, so I'm about to show him where he is."

"Are you sure you should?" the man, Crane, sounded genuinely concerned, "I mean, I can barely understand what this is. And as I heard, he bumped his head. Wouldn't the shock be too much for him?"

"It would be worse if kept from him, as you can agree." Lecter explained.

"Look, you're new to this, so..." Crane tried to reason.

"If it's a mistake, it'll be a new lesson for me." Lecter interrupted.

"But surely, not at a patient's cost." Crane implored.

"I'm sure he is much stronger than you credit him." Lecter said.

I cleared my throat: "Excuse me, but the 'patient' is still here."

"Oh, my apologies." Crane said, after which he stretched out his left hand to introduce himself, "Doctor Frasier Crane."

Another doctor, I thought to myself. So much so, I forgot I was supposed to take his hand and shake it.

Lecter shook his hand instead: "I thank you for your professional advise, doctor."

Since they both used their left hands to shake, this was the first time I could take a good look at Lecter's hand. I noticed something weird about it, but it wasn't until I counted all his fingers that I realized what it was: he had six fingers on his left hand!

"Well, I better get going, wouldn't want to miss it!" Crane said, just before he left us.

"What is this?" I asked, "Some kind of conference?"

Lecter grinned: "I'll take you to the man that'll answer all your questions. At least, your more pressing ones."

He continued walking, and since I didn't know what else to do, I followed him.


	3. Chapter 3

After a relatively short walk, Lecter lead me to a door. Here he stopped to talk: "In here, you'll find all answers."

"You keep saying that." I complained, "But why..."

"Don't I tell you anything myself?" he interrupted me, without even needing to raise his voice, "You won't believe me if I told you."

After that, he turned to walk away, but he wasn't actually away before he said: "I've showed you the door, it's up to you to walk through it."

I didn't know what to make of this guy. One moment he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking, the next he seemed to know how to pique my curiosity. Could any of that have something to do with why his name sounded familiar? In any case, I opened the door and walked inside.

What I saw in the room was, in every sense of the word, incredible. In the middle of the room, there was what looked like a hexagonical table, with buttons and levers, and some kind of cilinder in the middle of the table going up and down. I could only assume it was some kind of control console, but to control what? There were three men in the room; but out of all three of them, there was one in particular that stood out. The man had blue skin, completely white eyes (without an iris or a pupil), no hair, no clothes either, and some kind of symbol on his forehead. That symbol, I remember it to have been mentioned in one of Robert Langdon's books, a circumpunct I think it was called. I'm not entirely sure of what he was doing, but he stretched out his hand, which apparently affected that console I described earlier.

"Nice work." one of the other two men said.

I noticed they were looking at a screen. When I looked at it myself, I didn't see anything really interesting, nor how or why anyone did any "nice" work. All I saw was something that looked like a coliseum, with people taking their seats, looking at what looked like a huge rock in the middle of it all.

This is when the blue man started talking to another man, after which the third man addressed me: "Hello."

I turned to look at him. I didn't say anything, primarily because I was still trying to figure out what was going on.

"A little overwhelming for you, isn't it?" he continued.

I wasn't sure what was supposed to overwhelming, unless he meant the anachronistic nature of his outfit. As I said before, the entire interior has the look of something out of a science fiction story, but this one particular man looked like he just got off his pirate ship. On the other hand, if anyone were to ask me to picture an adventurer, this would be exactly what I'd imagine.

"Sorry." he said, "My name's Huxley, I'm a paleontologist."

Since he said "Huxley", I thought he was the first person I met that wasn't a doctor, but then he described himself to be a paleontologist, which would indicate he was a doctor of some kind.

"What is going on here?" I asked.

"You don't know?" Huxley seemed just as surprised as anyone else, "You're in a time machine."

I know I should be surprised to hear that, but for some reason I wasn't. Maybe after everything I had already been through it's hard to get impressed by anything.

"And what you're doing is...?" I asked him.

"I'm merely the host." Huxley explained, "It is these two over here that are doing all the travelling. We're going from one prehistoric era into another, and from that tribune, people can see all the creatures that lived back then."

"Er... what?" none of it made any sense still.

"I know." Huxley replied, "I can't make much sense of what Dr. Manhattan does either."

I frowned: "Dr. Manhattan?"

Huxley laughed: "Surely, you've heard of him. The man who made a difference during the cold war."

I'm not familiar with all the specifics, although I do remember having heard of something called the Manhattan Project. That project was an actual person?

"Doctor Huxley." the blue man, Manhattan, spoke, "It is time to go to your predestined location."

Faster than I could think "who talks like that", Huxley replied: "Of course. I can count on yo..."

Before he could finish his sentence, both Manhattan and Huxley disappeared into thin air. From the way they disappeared, however (they somehow turned into blue-ish particles) I could deduce that Manhattan must have somehow teleported them. I wasn't sure if that was the case, but to somehow keep my sanity, I stuck to that idea. This is when I got a better look at that third man. I looked at him, and I immediately thought "Isaac Newton". From any drawing I've seen of him, I can say that this man bore a striking resemblance to him. The head anyways, his choice of clothes made him seem like someone who lived in the far west. I approached him, hoping to, for once, get a straight answer from someone.

"And you are...?" I asked him.

"I'm the Doctor." he answered.

I rolled my eyes: "Yes, you and everyone else around here. Doctor who?"

"Never mind me." this... Doctor replied, "Who are you and how did you get inside my Tardis?"

Although I know more English than most people from my country, I was pretty sure he used a word you don't find in any dictionary: "Tardis?"

The Doctor laughed: "You remember seeing a blue box?"

"You mean that phone booth?" I asked, after which he nodded, "I was looking for a place to hide, found that booth. The door was open, so I hid inside."

"It was open?" the Doctor sounded surprised at first, "Must've forgotten to lock it."

"What is this place anyway?" I asked him.

"I told you, it's my Tardis." he answered.

This was when I got completely lost: "Didn't you just say that phone booth was a tardis?"

"It's not a phone booth, it's a police box." the Doctor explained, "And that is only the exterior."

This was when I started to get really frustrated: "Look... Doc, I just woke from hitting my head after entering this... box, right after being chased by an angry mob, whom I had to stop from taking over the world, while being exhausted from a hard day at work. In other words, I really don't feel like playing games, so will you just give it to me straight and tell me what all this is?"

"Hmm?" the Doctor said, "You're quite the direct one, aren't you... whoever you are."

I assumed he wanted to hear my name, but since he hasn't given me his, and given what my friend Hana had advised me to do, I answered: "Some people call me the Narrator."

The Doctor whidened his eyes: "You're the Narrator?"

"Er... yes? Why?" I didn't understand his reaction.

"Just curious." he got back to being casual.

I sighed deeply.

"We'll materialise soon, so don't worry, you'll have your answers soon." the Doctor explained.

"Materialize?" I asked.

"What did I just say about answers?!" the Doctor suddenly sounded more frustrated than I felt.


	4. Chapter 4

I heard a strange noise, which I couldn't quite place. At best, I could say it sounded like a car that tried to roll, while its breaks were still on.

"Now..." the Doctor said, "... care to take a look outside?"

Before he asked me, I wouldn't have hesitated, but with that tone he used, it sounded as though he were challenging me. If so, he probably hoped I'd hesitate, antagonising me further. I decided not to give in to his game and went out the door.

Outside, there was nothing but a desert landscape of red sand. For a moment I thought Mars, but it would be much colder and less breathable if that were the case. Also, it's impossible to go to Mars within one day. At least with any current technology. But then a thought came to me. Who would built an entire building in this desert? It was that question that got me to turn around. Doing so, not only did I see that blue phone booth again, I also noticed that that was the only structure there. I was inside a whole building, but suddenly it looked like I exited a small box. Just to be sure my mind wasn't playing tricks on me, I tried walking around the blue box. I was expecting to run into a mirror, or even a reflection of myself, but no such luck. I thought that the whole building must be underground, but I didn't remember going up a ladder or anything like that. So somehow, this entire building could fit inside this one tiny box. Just as I made my round around the box, the Doctor's head popped out of the doors. It startled me at first, and only when that happened, did he start talking to me.

"Unbelievable, isn't it?" he said.

I stammered at first, but eventually found the right words to use: "How is this possible?"

"Have you ever seen a giant monster movie?" the Doctor asked.

"Er... yes?" I answered.

"Well, quite often the giant monster has to interact with the smaller people, but in order to create that illusion, they'd often put the camera at a distance from the "smaller" people and the monster closer to the camera, so he'd appear larger."

"Yes, I know that. So?" it still didn't answer my question.

"It may be that the smaller people are taller than the man playing the monster, yet at that moment they look smaller." the Doctor continued, "My people have found a way for objects to keep their relative size, so they'd fit inside smaller things."

"A bit like fitting a herd of elephants in a Volkswagon?" I asked.

"With our knowledge and technologies, yes." the Doctor answered.

"I see." it suddenly became clearer to me.

"Hence even this ship's name, Tardis." the Doctor continued, "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."

It took me a few seconds, but eventually I understood what he meant: "T. A. R. D. I. S."

"There you go." the Doctor sounded as though he congratulated me.

"And what is all this materialising business?" I asked him.

"It's the means by which the Tardis transports." the Doctor explained, "It breaks down into it's most basic components, so it can travel through time and space. And once it reaches its destination, all the components reunite into its original form."

"A bit like teleportation." I didn't make it sound like a question, though it was intended as such.

"It's a little more complicated than that, but if it helps you to understand, yes." the Doctor replied.

Realizing that he did mention the words "time AND space", there was another question on my mind: "So where... or when, are we?"

"We're still on Earth." the Doctor answered, "On the continent of Pangea, during the Triassic period."

"Triassic?" I almost couldn't believe him, "That's over two hundred million years ago."

The Doctor smiled: "Didn't realize you were a paleontologist too."

"I'm not, it's just something I picked up on a documentary." I told him.

"Well then, if you like dinosaurs, you'll like what I'm doing here." the Doctor said, shortly before he re-entered the blue box.

I followed him inside, so I could ask: "Remind me, what is it exactly that you are doing here?"

The Doctor seemed to think, perhaps for the easiest way to explain it to me, then he answered: "When you first saw the exterior of the Tardis, what were you thinking?"

I hesitated to answer, which had him say: "Don't be shy, be honest. What were you thinking?"

"That there was an entire building outside the box, just hidden behind mirrors." I answered.

"Ah." the Doctor sounded pleased, "And after you walked around the Tardis, what explanation would you have given for what you saw?"

I will admit a thought came to mind, although I thought that was, if possible, even less credible than what the Doctor explained to me. But I tried: "Er... well, I thought that, much like you'd walk through a ghost, that this was a building that were somehow made untouchable, or in any shape or form imperceptible, safe for the... well, the door."

"A-hah. An interesting approach." the Doctor replied, "Well then, take a look at that screen."

I looked at the screen he was pointing at. It was still that same coliseum that I saw before, but I didn't understand what was so special about it: "What about it?"

"It's inside the Tardis." the Doctor answered, "However, with Jon's help, I've been able to allow it to manifest outside the Tardis, in such a way that whoever's sitting there will be able to see all the dinosaurs, but the dinosaurs won't be able to see them."

"So we'd be... ghosts?" I asked.

"Precisely." the Doctor answered, "Of course, just seeing them, the audience might think it's all just a forgery. That's why Huxley will be the only person able to walk outside the tribune, interacting with the dinosaurs."

"And be the host to this show." I deduced, "So that's what he meant."

The Doctor nodded: "You weren't meant to be here, though. But, the more the merrier."

"Yeah, that's another thing." I brought up, "Why is it that everyone I meet here are doctors?"

"Actually, not everyone here is a doctor, per say." the Doctor explained, "Some are professors, others are studying to become them, and the rest... would have been doctors or professors, except that in their time there was no such thing."

"Okay..." I understood that bit, "... but why are they all here?"

"Mostly because non-scientists would be too thick to recognize what they're seeing. As for the individuals, each for their own reasons." the Doctor answered, "Ellie Sattler, for instance, whom I think you've met, she had her own little encounter with dinosaurs in the late eighties."

"Her own encounter?" I didn't know what he was talking about.

"Ever heard of the InGen incident?" he asked me.

I shook my head, so he explained: "InGen was a company that tried to build an amusement park, which would house living and breathing dinosaurs, and a Dr. Grant, along with Ellie, who was his student at the time, they were to be their testing audience. Dr. Grant found the experience educational, but Ellie... her view upon dinosaurs changed completely. Which is unfortunate, as she was to make a huge difference on the field of paleontology. So I've been taking her with me on this trip, just to remind her of the beauty of these beasts."

"I see." I think I understood, "And what about the others? Brown, Lecter, Crane?"

"Brown was trying to invent his own time machine, but failed multiple times. He was about to give up when I met him, so I'm doing this to convince him time travelling is not impossible. And Crane, although a psychiatrist, after hearing too many sad stories, he began realizing life is too depressing, so in taking him with me, I hope to remind him there's more to his world."

Those last words he said reminded me of something else: "I'm sorry, but you keep talking about your people and our world. What does that make you?"

"Complicated." the Doctor avoided answering the question, "Anyway, we're about to start with the show. Unless you want to miss it, I suggest you go looking for a place to sit."

I still wanted to hear an answer to my question, but the tone he used sounded as though he insisted, so I left the control room, looking for this tribune.

I don't know how large this Tardis of his is, but I was afraid of getting lost. The Doctor seemed to have been prepared for such events, as there were arrows pointing people into the right direction. I followed those arrows, and sure enough I found the tribune. But on my way there, I realized something else. I asked him why he took those people I met with him, and he explained why he took Sattler, Brown and Crane, but for some reason he didn't say anything about Lecter, despite me asking him about him. I was starting to think I was missing something.


	5. Chapter 5

After a little while, I managed to find my way to the tribune. But once there, the really hard part was to find a place for me to sit down. Since I couldn't immediately see an empty chair, I opted to sit down on the stairs between seats. Doing so, I overheard a man talking about how thrilled he was to be there.

"I only wished Eric were here to see this." he said.

"Who's Eric?" somebody sitting next to him asked.

"My son." he answered, "He just loves dinosaurs. In fact, he loves them so much, he can't understand how Darwin can't recognize their beauty."

"Pardon me." there was a third voice, "Did somebody mention my name?"

What followed was an exchange of... what I could only describe as insane babble, I couldn't make sense of it. At the very least, it made me realize I picked the wrong spot, so I got up and walked away.

"Hey you!" I heard a woman call.

I took a quick look. It was Sattler who called, motioning me if I could sit with her, Brown and Lecter. I noticed there was an empty seat next to her, and it was far away from those other two I just described. I can't say I truly knew these three, but still it was somewhat comforting to sit with familiar faces.

"Hey!" Sattler greeted, "How are you?"

"Confused." was my dry response, "Wouldn't you be?"

"Not if you've been on Isla Nublar." Sattler replied.

I didn't ask her, but I assumed she was referring to the place where this InGen incident that the Doctor mentioned took place.

"Why? What's so special about Isla Nublar?" Brown asked her.

This is when a voice spoke over the P.A. By the sound of it, it was the Doctor: "Good day everybody. Soon, we shall all embark on a time trip, where we will see creatures long extinct: the dinosaurs. But as we don't want to alarm them of our presence, it is advised to not record any images of them, as the sound of your camera's and their flashes will have them go crazy."

I thought to myself that him saying that was just an excuse so people wouldn't have any physical proof that they just travelled through time. Which would beg the question why he'd pick so many on this trip anyway. But I guessed, since most of these people were, after all, scientists, they'd be wise enough to understad why they shouldn't tell anything to anyone. At least that is my guess.

Not too long after, Huxley appeared in the very center of everything. As the Doctor told me, he was really walking outside, being the only one capable of seeing the tribune where we were sitting. So from an outside observer, it would look like he's talking to an audience that's not there. How weird that must look, I thought to myself. In any case, he held a fossil of a dinosaur's skull. I'm not sure which dinosaur it was, but that wasn't important. He told us how he's in awe about them, told us his name, and pretty much gave us the same introduction as the Doctor already did, with the sole exceptions that he didn't reference the notion of people holding camera's, and that he didn't just talk about us seeing dinosaurs, but that we'll actually be walking with them. How we'll manage that while sitting down is another matter (or perhaps I'm taking the phrase too literally).


	6. Chapter 6

During my own trip around the world, I had ended up on an island in the South Pacific, where I encountered some dinosaurs. Later, I somehow found myself in a sort of zoo, where not only dinosaurs, but other prehistoric creatures were displayed. An event I quite frankly don't want to remember, as that was the time that I was eaten by one of these animals. I was lucky to meet with Daizyujin in the afterlife, who helped me get back to life, albeit with a few differences. The reason I'm mentioning this is because that thought had occurred to me just as this show started. I saw a bipedal dinosaur, biting a hatchling and eating it, only to be worried away by its mother. It reminded me of when I was eaten. Still, I was watching this from a safe distance this time. As morbid as the sight of it was, dinosaurs were still beautiful creatures, and worth getting to know better. I will avoid getting back to that Prehistoric Park, or that South-Pacific island, but if the occasion would arise that I meet with a dinosaur again, I should really know more about them.

After seeing those two specimens, the scenery changed. The tribune remained, but what was displayed in the middle changed. One moment there was light, the next there was darkness, and somewhere along the way, plants started to grow. It took me a moment to realize that the Tardis was somehow taking us further into (from when we were at the time) the future, and showing us the evolution of the planet, while Huxley explained that we were (indeed) travelling further ahead in time. I heard a man shout something along the lines of "that's a lie" or "purest propaganda", and heard his voice toning down, as if he were being carried out of the theater.

Somewhere midway the show, which according to Huxley was about 170 million years ago, I saw a man running up the tribune. Though there was few light, his silhouette suggested he was running, quite upset. I couldn't be sure, but there was something familiar about the shape of it. Just to be sure, I went after him.

In the hallway, I could see the man more clearly. Judging from his pace and the sounds he was making, I was right to think he was upset. I also recognized him.

"Crane?" I asked.

Startled, he turned: "Oh, it's only you."

"I know it's none of my business..." I started.

"Oh that's not a problem." Crane sounded as though he was trying to laugh it all away, "It's my job to meddle with other people's business's, so who am I to judge?"

His laugh was forced, and not very convincing, so I pressed on: "Did you forget to take your own pills?"

"Ahahah!" another forced laugh, "That's a good one. And no I don't take pills and even if I did there are no pills for seeing all this happening in front of you all these dinosaurs and the realisation that they've been around many million years ago and are now gone while a man's life is so much shorter and..."

He spoke in one breath, without a pause. It took him a while before he finally finished his sentence.

"... and I just need some air." he turned around and continued.

I couldn't think of any reason why he shouldn't get some air. Until I remembered that we were inside a travelling time machine.

"Crane wait!" I shouted and ran after him.

"Doctor Crane, you don't know what you're doing!" I heard Brown shout, shortly before he ran inside my field of vision, followed by Sattler and Lecter.

As Brown and Sattler were busy calling after Crane, Lecter was the only one to talk to: "What are you doing here?"

"We noticed you leaving, we were... worried, so we followed." Lecter explained.

The fact that he paused before he said "worried" gave me the impression he wanted to say something else at first.


	7. Chapter 7

We made it into the Tardis' console room, but not before Crane did... whatever he did. I saw smoke coming out of the control panel, and the Doctor trying wave it away while examining the machine.

"What happened?" Brown asked.

"Doctor Crane came, opened the door while we were still travelling, and now he's out there." the Doctor explained.

There was something I didn't understand about that: "Er... at risk of asking a stupid question, how can he just walk out of here if we've... dematerialised?"

"Because this type of travelling doesn't require dematerialisation." the Doctor explained, "We're just moving forward into time, only at faster pace than anything else. And with Doctor Crane walking out of here... it's like trying to jump out of a moving train. But in this case, it does more harm to the Tardis than on the one walking out."

"Wait a minute!" Sattler interrupted, "Why are you wasting time explaining all this? He's out there, in a world he doesn't even know!"

"Well, I'll need some time fixing this." the Doctor said, "You lot better go find him."

This was when Huxley suddenly appeared in the room, startling Sattler and Brown. I was a little surprised, but not as much as the other two, as I had seen it before. What really surprised me is that Lecter didn't give a reaction at all.

"Huxley!" the Doctor sounded excited, "I was about to call for you."

"I know." Huxley replied, "Dr. Manhattan told me you were about to call for me, so he sent me. Must be strange for him to see past, present and future at the same time."

"That's a little overrated." the Doctor replied.

"We're wasting time!" Sattler shouted, "We've got to find Doctor Crane. Now!"

She ran to the front door and left the Tardis. Huxley, Brown and Lecter soon followed. I was about to, but realizing what danger I might be facing, I took out my special pair of gloves. I wasn't entirely sure how my Jyuken could be useful in this situation, but I didn't want to take any chances. I put on those gloves and followed the others.

Once outside the Tardis, I was stunned at the sight of... well, pretty much everything in sight. All the plants, all the trees. I wasn't sure where in the world we were supposed to be, but everything seemed exotic. At this point, there were no dinosaurs in sight, which was a bit disappointing. Then again, if the dinosaurs were carnivorous, we'd be in some serious trouble.

"Alright." Huxley started, "So if understand you correctly, a man freaked out and is now out here somewhere."

Before I asked how anyone could have told him that much in that short time that I was still in the Tardis before I joined them, he continued: "We'd better split up so we can cover more ground. Ellie..."

I was wondering who he was talking to, but realizing that there was only one woman among us, there was only one option of who he was talking to.

"You better take Emmet with you." he continued.

I wasn't sure when he had a chance to get on first name terms with these people, nor did I have a chance to ask.

Huxley turned to Lecter, but before he could say anything, Lecter already spoke: "I think I can handle this much better on my own."

"Very well." Huxley agreed, then turned to me, "You come with me."

With this, we split up. None of us were very sure which way Crane went, but seeing as how he was easily upset about this show, he was likely not a very adventurous type of person, so he couldn't have made it very far before he collapsed in fear. At least, so I hoped, so our search wouldn't last too long, if at all long.


	8. Chapter 8

As we began walking, one realisation came to me: "Hang on, if that Manhattan guy could know things in advance..."

"Why aren't we letting him search for Doctor Crane?" Huxley finished my question, "Because he's needed to keep the Tardis running, or at least to keep it running as it is now. He can't even use his powers to be at multiple spots at once. It's too risky."

I wasn't too sure if I understood everything he said. I guess he assumed I knew Manhattan well enough to know what he's capable of, and therefor understand what he meant with every word he said. Either way, we continued our search.

After some time, I noticed something... I should say, peculiar: "Huxley, how far back in the past are we?"

"About a hundred and seventy million years." he answered, "Why?"

"And humans didn't exist until after dinosaurs were gone, right?" I asked.

"Of course not." Huxley seemed to grow more curious.

"Then tell me, what the hell is that?" I pointed to that which I found peculiar.

Huxley then saw it too. There was what looked like a monument, which had statues of five great beasts. Something which only humans could have made.

Huxley was just as surprised: "What... how's that possible?"

"Is it possible that there was another race before we evolved?" I asked him.

"Even if that were the case, this still doesn't make sense." Huxley answered, as he came closer to the monument.

"How so?" I asked.

"Look at that." he pointed at the statue that resembled a Tyrannosaur, "That didn't exist until the last ten million years of the Cretaceous period. And we haven't even left Jurassic yet. And these two..."

He was pointing at the ones that looked like a sabre-toothed tiger and a mammoth: "Those didn't come until dinosaurs were long gone."

"Er... is it not possible these animals existed much longer than you initially thought?" I asked.

"Yes." Huxley admitted, "However, the circumstances for these animals to evolve have to be exactly right. And these aren't the right ones."

I cocked my head, to which Huxley said: "It's difficult to explain to a layman, but..."

"Never mind." I interrupted, "I'll just take your word for it."

This was when Huxley noticed something else: "Speaking of anachronisms, there's another."

He was looking at the sky when he said that. Before I could ask him anything, he started running. I looked up, and saw smoke rising up. It could've been a forest fire, but then there'd be more smoke. So no, it was a smaller fire, like a campfire. I followed Huxley. Even though I had lost sight of him, the smoke was enough of a beacon for me to know where he was headed.

Before I made it anywhere close, I could already hear Huxley shouting: "What are you doing!?"

"Having a taste of the local delicacies." I recognized Lecter's voice.

"I know what you're thinking." that was Sattler's voice, "But it's really quite good."

"And what about Doctor Crane?" Huxley asked.

"Hmm... he's... over there." that was Brown, who clearly had his mouth full.

"Allow me to explain." I heard Lecter explaining, while I approached the... well, camp, "Doctor Crane is clearly a man of comfort. If he were to see a campfire, he'd recognize it as some form of civilisation, which would draw him near and..."

He didn't finish his sentence, as that was when I entered his field of vision, but I could guess what the rest of his story was about.

"Oh, it's you." Lecter seemed to try and sound pleasantly surprised, but he sounded more pleased than surprised, "You want to try this?"

He offered me a piece of meat, which looked charred from the campfire. Too much so, I couldn't recognize what kind of meat it was.

"Depends on what it is." I replied.

"If I tell you..." he answered, "... you might not try it."

"And if you don't, I most definitely won't." I retorted.

"Why won't you just pack up this camp and go back to the Tardis!" Huxley sounded more like he was ordering them than asking them nicely.

They did as they were told. Brown put out the fire, while I, along with Huxley and Sattler picked up Crane. I saw a bump on his head, which told me that Lecter's plan of luring him worked, and to make sure he wouldn't run away again, he was knocked out cold. Sattler and Crane must've joined in on this picnic later, I deduced. As I realized as much, I saw something hidden in the... I'm not sure I should call them bushes, but I suppose it was the Jurassic's version of that. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like a piece of clothing. When I did, Lecter came to me.

"You don't have to help them with him." he said, "Two are enough to carry that man."

"If you say so." I replied.

"Here. You can help me carry this around." he gave me something that looked like a leaf, but it was wrapped around something. I guess this animal, whatever it was, tasted so good, he's taking more of it with him.

"What's so special about..." I wanted to know more about this stuff, but as soon as I asked, the whole scenery we were in changed. Somehow, we were inside the Tardis' console room again.

"Good, you found him again." the Doctor said, "You can put him down on that stretcher over there."

Both Huxley and Sattler were surprised about this sudden turn of events, but despite that, they realized that Crane needed to be laid down immediately, so they put him down on the stretcher that the Doctor was pointing at.

"Er... what just happened?" I asked.

"Isn't Jon supposed to be fully concentrated on..." Huxley started.

"Yes, yes, yes." the Doctor interrupted, "But since the Tardis is malfunctioning, I asked him if he could switch it off. So he has nothing to devote his attention to. Hence..."

"But how did you know we found Crane?" I asked.

"That's how." the Doctor pointed to that screen again, where I recognized the very spot we left just seconds ago.

"I see... I think." I replied.

"I suppose Jon knew I was about to ask him to transport you back here, so he did." the Doctor continued.

"Well, we've done what we could." Lecter said, "Better get back to the show."

"There, that should do it." the Doctor did... whatever it was he was doing to fix his console.

He pressed a few buttons and the Tardis started to make it's strange sound again, which indicated it was moving. But for some reason, that didn't last long, as the whole room started to shake, and the lights went off and on again.

"What happened?" Brown asked.

"I was afraid of this." the Doctor said, "We've moved only a few years forward."

I turned away from him, and ended up looking at the screen again, where I noticed a startling sight.

"Er... Doc? Are we still looking at the same spot where you found us?" I asked him.

"Of course we are." he answered, "Why wouldn't we?"

It was then that he looked at the screen too. Where was once enough vegetation to call the area a forrest, was now a barren wasteland.

"Well now, what happened here?" the Doctor wondered.

"I know we've gotten a few years further." Sattler said, "But unless some kind of bomb exploded, there's no way that could've turned into a wasteland that fast."

"The animal kingdom should be thriving right now..." the Doctor said, "Something's different here. Huxley, you get Jon, see if he can fix some things here. The rest of you, come with me."

He hadn't said those words yet, or he already left the Tardis. Lecter, Brown, Sattler and me followed him. And once all of us were outside the Tardis, the Doctor locked the door. To keep Crane, or anyone else, from leaving, I guessed.


	9. Chapter 9

Outside, everything looked even more grim than it did from inside. What we saw inside could be seen as just a still frame, but being in the middle of that frame was an entirely different matter. The ground was dark brown, almost black, the trees, or what was left of them, were white crusts, the sky was grey,... if that phone booth that's supposed to be our ride wasn't already out of place for its time alone, its blue color made it seem even more out of place in this colorless environment.

"This doesn't make sense." Sattler sounded.

I turned to look at her. She was taking a closer look at the tree stumps, and apparently made a little discovery.

"These trees, they look like they've fossilised." she explained, "But that takes millions of years and the lack of oxygen to do that."

"I'm not so sure." Brown spoke, "If any of those nuclear bombs ever explode, the radiation might cause the same effect. Maybe even any chemical or biological weapons."

From the way he sounded, I could deduce he either thought the Cold War was still raging, or since we're time travellers he may be taken from that exact point in time when it was still on.

"But even if it were any of that..." the Doctor seemed to disagree, "... you'd still need an advanced race to bring that about. The last advanced race that were ever here died out before life even began here. The Silurians haven't evolved yet, and the first hominid won't appear until after the dinosaurs are gone. So what could cause this?"

I could follow the Doctor until he brought up the notion of other races.

"Are you sure that humans haven't evolved yet?" Lecter seemed curious, although there was a strange tone in his voice that I couldn't quite place.

"Yes." the Doctor replied.

"And what if there's another race that you're not aware of?" again, Lecter had that strange tone.

The Doctor was losing patience: "Is there something you wish to tell us, Hannibal?"

This was the first time that Lecter's first name was mentioned, and upon hearing it I suddenly remembered where I had heard the name before. I suddenly realized how cold the surrounding area was, I noticed bumps appearing over both my arms, and I started shaking heavily.

"I was only asking, just to see if..." Lecter continued, but must've noticed the look of horror I most likely had on my face, "Is something wrong? You look slightly paler than..."

I raised my finger, so to keep him from talking: "I... will... can I be excused for a minute?"

I didn't wait for a reply, I just ran off.

There weren't many, if any trees to hide behind, but there were enough hills for me to climb down to and rocks to pass by,... enough means to get out of their sight and to know my way back and not get lost. In any case, I eventually stopped moving. I more or less understood who was there on this trip, why they came along and all that, but this one particular guest? And since they all had more time to get to know one another, they should have heard the man's full name, and the very least even Sattler must have heard of him, but she didn't recognize him?

"Narrator?" the Doctor's voice sounded.

I assumed he would want me to turn to him as he spoke to me, but for some reason I couldn't do that. I heard the Doctor coming closer, I felt him putting his hand on my shoulder, at which point I turned on my heel, and decided to tell him exactly what was on my mind.

"Doctor Lecter!?" I exclaimed, "Doctor Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter?! What were you thinking?"

The Doctor wasn't upset by my outburst. Quite the contrary, he seemed gleeful: "So you heard of him."

"Heard of him?" I was suprised that was the best he could say, "Why did you have to take him with you? Lecter, who's known to have..."

"But he hasn't." the Doctor interrupted, "Or at least, for as far as he's concerned, he hasn't killed anyone yet."

"And makes this so much better?" I continued.

"I'm not sure what it is that made him turn into 'The Cannibal', but like with any psychopath, it would be something that has been stirring inside him for a long time. I just hope that by taking him with me, I could help him reconsider his actions."

Although that explanation did help a little, the shock of finding out who Lecter really was remained for a while.

"I am sorry for causing such a great shock." the Doctor apologized.

"I'm sure you are, Doc." I replied, though I'm not sure even no if I really meant it.

I turned my back to him. I still needed some time to think about what he had explained to me. Doing so, I noticed a bunch of peculiar rocks. When I went down to take a closer look, I noticed they weren't regular rocks. They seemed to be the remains of those statues that Huxley and I discovered.

"What is it?" the Doctor asked me.

This was when I remembered something from what the Doctor had said: "You wanted to see intelligence? How's this?"

I showed him these remains, and he reverted back to his state of glee: "Fascinating!"

"What's going on here?" I heard Brown's voice, "We heard shouting."

"Never mind the shouting." the Doctor told him, as he turned to face Brown and the others, "What do you make of this?"

"Interesting craft." Lecter replied, "How unfortunate it was destroyed."

Hearing Lecter speak, I dared not turn to look at everyone else. Since they were doctors, and experts at their specific fields, I didn't think they had much use for me, so I started back to the Tardis.

I had only just left their sights, when I suddenly saw something... unusual to say the least. It looked like many shards of broken glass, flying around some kind of center, similar to how the stars of a galaxy circle around the center of the galaxy. From this... thing, a man came. He had the appearance of the soldier, albeit not contemporary to my standards. A soldier from the future? In any case, he was covered in blood, and jumping on one foot, as if his other leg was wounded. Just as he arrived, he collapsed to the floor. Although I didn't know what I was looking at, it doesn't take a medical doctor to know that this man needed help. I ran to him, trying to figure out what to do.

"Are you alright?" I asked him.

With whatever little energy he had left, he was pointing to that one leg of his, the one he wasn't using to walk before.

"B... but..." he tried to talk, "... fly..."

"But... fly?" I couldn't make sense of it.

He tried one more time: "...utter... fly..."

He collapsed, which was when I shouted: "Doc!"

Upon my call, everyone came. Would it be completely misplaced and unfunny if I said that every single one of them replied "yes" when they arrived? Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened. In a moment of utter frustration, I was about to ask which one was a medical doctor, but all of these doctors were amazed by the sight of that thing from which the man came.

"What is that?" Brown asked.

"You tell me." I spoke, quickly, "But forget about that, this guy could be dying."

That was the first time they even noticed the unconscious soldier. Lecter was the first to approach him.

"What... what are you up to?" I asked him, with an obvious tremble in my voice.

"I studied medicine, I can help him." he replied.

"Yeah, no doubt." I couldn't hide my cynicism there.

Lecter seemed to notice my tone, but seemed more impressed than annoyed: "Is there a problem?"

"How very interesting." the Doctor spoke, as a means of interrupting the conversation, as he started taking a closer look at that... since I don't know a better word for it, that shard-gate.

"What is it?" Sattler asked him.

"I don't know." the Doctor replied, "I've never seen that before."

He searched his pockets, every one of them, which meant that he didn't have the thing he was looking for on him: "I come across this anomaly, and I left my sonic screwdriver back in the Tardis."

Wish I had thought of using that word to describe it, "anomaly", but that wasn't what really surprised me: "Sonic screwdriver?"

"This man needs medical help, but we'll have to return to the Tardis for that." Lecter said.

"Well, let's just wait for Doctor Manhattan to pick us up." Sattler spoke.

"You can't always rely on him." the Doctor told her, "Especially since he's now doing some imp..."

It was then that, again, the surroundings changed into the Tardis' console room.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor became angry with Manhattan, who was still working on the Tardis' controls.

"I knew you needed my help." Manhattan replied.

"But I had just found something that needs to be looked into." the Doctor complained.

"Oooh... what is all that fuss about." Crane was waking up.

"Good, now that you're awake, you can get out of that stretcher." Lecter told him.

With that, a bit of a discussion started between these doctors. That is, the Doctor was complaining to Manhattan, Crane didn't think he should move too much, and Lecter, along with Sattler and Brown, needed to convince Crane about the emergency. It was during all that, that I noticed something sticking to the wounded soldier's sole of his shoe. There was quite some mud, but among it was what looked like a butterfly. It was then that I remembered, this soldier was trying to say something. I could barely understand "butterfly" but I didn't know what he meant. In other words, this butterfly was important somehow. While everyone was still discussing these matters, I scraped the butterfly off the shoe. Not long after that, the soldier was put on the stretcher, and Lecter and Brown carried him away. I wouldn't trust a wounded man alone with Lecter, but Brown went along, therefor they wouldn't be alone, ergo I had nothing to worry about. Safe for the fact that I didn't know how this one little butterfly could possibly be so important.


	10. Chapter 10

With those three out of the room, I turned to the Doctor: "Doc, you might wanna take a look at this."

"What is it?" he asked me.

I showed him the butterfly, which he then took in his hands, smelled, then brought it closer to his eyes, closer to his ears.

"It's body's demolished, but his head is still in one piece." the Doctor said.

"I'm sorry..." Sattler came between us, "... but why do you think it's so important to look at that butterfly?"

"It was stuck on that soldier's foot." I explained, "Before he passed out, he made it seem like it's very important somehow."

"How?" Sattler asked.

"He passed out before I could ask." I replied.

"Oh no." the Doctor seemed to panic, "This one won't last much longer."

He ran to Manhattan: "Jon, can you restore his body?"

Manhattan didn't even turn to look, or the butterfly's wings started flapping again.

"He can raise the dead?" I was surprised to see this.

"No." the Doctor explained, "Many insects can survive for hours, days, some even for weeks with their heads cut off. This one was still alive, it just needed it's body restored."

"I can restore the body if it were already dead, but that would not mean it would live again." Manhattan further explained.

This was when the butterfly was about to fly out of the Doctor's hand. He managed to cup his hand over his other hand, so to keep it from escaping, but of course he couldn't hold his hands like that forever: "Can anyone find me a jar?"

I looked about, but didn't know where to begin looking.

"Hold on." Huxley said, after which he took a jar out of his own bag. He opened it, held it in front of the Doctor, so the latter could release the butterfly into it, after which Huxley closed it and put it back in his bag.

"This still leaves us with one unanswered question." I said.

"There are a lot of unanswered questions right now." the Doctor said, "What is that anomaly? What happened to this world? How could there be human-made sculptures before humans even existed?"

"Oh, you found them?" Huxley asked.

"You know about them?" the Doctor was surprised.

"You didn't tell him?" Huxley asked me, "You didn't tell him about how we found those statues?"

The Doctor then looked at me, questioningly.

"Well I'm sorry." I apologized, though cynically, "I was too busy helping our new arrival, and getting my head around the fact that Le..."

"All right, all right." the Doctor interrupted me, "I meant to ask which question you meant."

"I meant who our guest is and how that bug is so important." I explained.

"Those are two questions." the Doctor said.

I didn't have much else to say after that.

"Doctor, what is that?" Sattler suddenly asked.

She pointed at something on the screen. It looked like a black dot, shifting into many different shapes and sizes, sometimes even shifting into multiple dots. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that what we were looking at were people moving, they were just at such a distance that they could only be perceived as dots. The Doctor pressed a few buttons on his controls, which zoomed in on the picture. What were dots at first were suddenly... one thing that looked like a humanoid bat, another that looked like a blue gnome, yet another that looked like a lion in a golden armor with wings, a group of grey men moving about, and one woman in a witch-like attire.

"Bandora?" the Doctor sounded surprised.

"That's Pandora?" I asked him.

The Doctor sighed: "Pandora didn't appear until a few thousands of years before you were born. This one's Bandora, with a 'B'."

"Who is she?" Sattler asked.

"She's once tried to destroy the world in 1992." the Doctor explained, "But what is she doing here now?"

"Could she be behind what happened here?" Huxley asked.

"I hope not." the Doctor said, after which he turned to leave the Tardis.

"Hey, where are you going!?" Sattler shouted after him, after which she followed him out.

"Manhattan, Huxley." I spoke to the other two, "You'd better come along too."

Huxley nodded, whereas Manhattan didn't give a reaction. Rather, he just disappeared from where he stood. Either he didn't want to come, or decided to use his own method of getting there. Why he didn't take Huxley or me with him, I don't know. Which ever the case, Huxley and I left the Tardis too. Or rather, I was about to, but Huxley stopped me.

"You better stay here." he told me, after which he gave me the jar with the butterfly.

"What?!" I couldn't believe it.

"Someone needs to take care of this." he told me, after which he left me behind.


	11. Chapter 11

"Well, look at the bright side of it." I heard Crane speak.

I turned to him. With all the trouble with that butterfly, and suddenly seeing a woman called Bandora, whoever she may be, I had forgotten that Crane was still in the control room.

"You really wouldn't want to go out there and risk your life against... those... people." Crane continued.

"You certainly didn't have a problem leaving a traveling time machine and going out into a dinosaur infested world." I remarked, "And when did you decide to talk again?"

"Well, Doctor Sattler didn't let me talk before, but now that she's gone..." Crane explained.

"Wait, you didn't talk because you didn't want to be scolded?" I couldn't understand, "What kind of psychiatrist are you?"

Before he could answer, I heard a voice cackling. It came from that screen where we first saw Bandora. I looked at the screen.

"This land has become barren and wasted. No creature can survive here now!" she laughed out loud.

What surprised me wasn't so much what she was saying, but the fact that for some reason, even though she was speaking a language that sounded like an old form of Japanese, I could understand every word she said.

"Ahahah!" Crane seemed to force another laugh, "A prehistoric woman who knows English! Now I'm really crazy."

"You and me both." I said. And I was serious about that. Why did I hear her speak ancient Japanese, but he heard her speak English?

"Interesting." the Doctor's voice sounded, after which Bandora and her henchmen turned to see who spoke, "So you're behind this. I'd love to know how you did that."

"Who might you be?" she asked him.

The golden armored beast raised his sword, about ready to attack.

"Hold it, Grifforzer." Bandora told him.

The beast, or Grifforzer, lowered his sword.

"I am the Doctor." the Doctor replied to her question, "And I'm very curious about what you're doing here."

"He's standing face to face with a woman who, who admitted to have made this wasteland, and yet he is still so frivolous about all this." Crane seemed to try and laugh it all off.

"If you must know..." Bandora continued, pointing behind the Doctor, "... ask Dora Set!"

The Doctor seemed surprised, before he turned around and saw... I'm not sure what it was. It looked humanoid, but had the head of an animal I had never seen before. It resembled Seth from Egyptian mythology, but given how Bandora called him Set, I don't think it's the same one. Assuming Seth were ever real, but with what I have seen so far, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

"Another Set." the Doctor said.

"Another?" both Dora Set and I said in unison, but only Set said the following: "There can be only one Set!"

He attacked the Doctor, by conjuring up... some kind of magic beam. But as he shot it at the Doctor, something intercepted it.

"Thank you, Jon." the Doctor said.

This was the first time for Bandora and her gang to see Manhattan. Dora Set did not let him stop his actions. A fight broke out between the two. Some might call this a fight between gods, but I'm not so sure about that.

"So you're the one!" Sattler suddenly approached Bandora.

"The one what?" Bandora asked her.

This exchange was weird. Earlier, I heard the Doctor speak Bandora's language, and seeing as I knew very little about him, I just thought he knew her language, like an Egyptologist would know ancient Egyptian. But when Sattler spoke to Bandora, she spoke plain English, while Bandora kept talking her own language, yet the two seemed to understand each other perfectly well. How was that possible?

"It is you who gave women a bad name, and had them forever suppressed by men!" Sattler continued.

"You're even crazier than all the people who tried to stop me!" Bandora replied.

"People?" the Doctor questioned, "What people?"

"You mean those same people who built those dinosaur statues?" Huxley suddenly decided to show.

"Uh-oh." the gnome in Bandora's group seemed to panic, "If anyone ever mentions that word..."

"Dinosaur statues?!" Bandora started to get furious, "I thought I had destroyed them all!"

"Why would you want to destroy statues?" the Doctor asked her.

"What does it matter to you!" she screamed, after which she raised her staff, from which she conjured up more magic. But then more people appeared. One of whom carried a staff of his own, with which he blocked Bandora's magic.

Bandora looked at who stopped her, then growled: "Barzaa..."

"We thank you for distracting her." the man, Barzaa, said, "Now, let us finish this."

With him was what appeared to be an army of soldiers, each of which appeared perfectly human. But for some reason, there were some faces among them that seemed vaguely familiar. But I didn't have much of a chance to find out why, as that was when the Doctor, Sattler, Huxley and Manhattan returned to the control room.

"Wha... I'll never get used to that." Crane said.

"Er... what's going on?" I asked.

"I just remembered." the Doctor answered, "It was said that Bandora was locked away for 170 million years. I never believed it because there weren't any humans back then. But now it seems there were, and if so, it means that her defeat is a fixed point in time, so we'd better not intervene."

"That wasn't exactly what I meant." I told him.

Before I could tell him what I did mean, or the Doctor could ask me about it, Huxley remembered something else: "But meanwhile, we still have our patient."

"Oh, that's right." the Doctor suddenly remembered it, "Why won't we go check on him?"

"Hah! Of course!" Crane seemed to go more crazy every second, "Exactly what I need, after seeing monsters, witches. A soldier that's being operated on!"

"You're such a big baby!" Sattler complained to him.

"Nobody tells you to come along." the Doctor told him.

"Well, if you're gonna stay..." I told him, "... why won't you guard this."

I gave him the jar with the butterfly, which he hesitantly took.

"You know what, I better stay with him." Sattler decided, "Make sure that he will."

"Good." the Doctor decided, "Jon, how's the Tardis?"

"It should be good to go." he said.

"Then go back to the tribune. And Huxley..." the Doctor turned to him, "Try and keep the audience busy."

Both went to do as they were told, while the Doctor went to see that soldier we picked up earlier. Not wanting to miss anything, I followed him. I wasn't exactly keen on meeting Lecter again, but since the Doctor was there, and Brown should still be there, it gave me a little more courage.


	12. Chapter 12

On our way to that soldier, I remembered there was one question I had for the Doctor, which if not answered soon enough, I might actually lose my sanity before Crane loses his. And he was already quite close to it.

"Doc?" I started.

"Hmm?" he briefly turned his head, so to let me know he's listening.

"Earlier, I heard Bandora talk, but..." I started.

"You want to know how you can understand her?" he interrupted.

"Yes." I confirmed.

"It's the Tardis's doing." he explained, "It sends out telepathic signals to its occupants, which translates the things you hear."

"I see." I was following so far, "But why is it that when Crane hears her, he hears English, but when I hear her, I hear her own language?"

The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks. Clearly, what I asked him was new to him: "You mean you don't hear her speak English? Or your own language?"

I could only assume that, despite my wide knowledge of English, my accent gave away that English isn't my first language. Still, I answered: "No. I hear her speak a language I don't know, but for some reason I understand every word she says."

"This is the most unusual day." the Doctor said, "And coming from me, that can't be good."

As he continued walking, I asked him: "How so?"

"I found out humans existed before the KT-event..." he answered, followed by an explanation of what the KT-event is (which I already knew to be the moment when the dinosaurs died out), before he continued summing up everything, "... we've got a man who came here under unknown circumstances, there's anomaly that I couldn't investigate, Bandora is actually out there, and now I come across the first human for who the Tardis doesn't translate entirely. What's next?"

"You find out why that butterfly is so important?" I suggested, "Or is that normal to you?"

"I've seen a marbles that held entire galaxies." the Doctor answered, "A butterfly is nothing."

"Forget I asked." I replied.

When we reached the room where the soldier was taken care of (which incidentally was the same room where I recovered from my fatigue, which would explain how the Doctor could know where to find him). Inside, Lecter was still seeing to the wound that the soldier had.

"Will he be alright?" the Doctor asked.

"Would anyone ever be alright from a gunshot wound?" Lecter asked in return.

"I hope this would never happen to me." Brown said.

"Did he say anything in the meantime?" I asked, before I realized how stupid this sounded.

"There were some times he tried to speak, but there was nothing coherent." Lecter answered.

"He did mention the words 'time' and 'change'." Brown added, "But unless he's a time traveler like ourselves, that means nothing."

The Doctor scratched his chin: "You may be on to something, Emmet."

He then started to the soldier, where he laid his hands on his head.

"Er... what are you doing?" I asked.

"Nothing... yet." the Doctor said, "If he can't tell us what he wants, I'll see if I can extract it from his mind."

"What, you're a telepath now?" I asked him.

"I thought the technical term is 'reader' by your time." the Doctor replied.

To this day, I am still not sure what he meant by that. Hearing him say that, it implied that telepathy is common knowledge. While I do know about these mutants that were active during the sixties, these so-called supers in the eighties, and of course more recently the 4400, but as far as I know none of them are or were capable of reading thoughts.

"By your time?" Brown suddenly questioned me, "When are you from?"

Lecter shushed him: "I think the Doctor wants to say something.

The Doctor's words were spoken with pauses, but they were enough to give us an idea as to who the man was and where he came from.

"Eckels... Time Safari... hunted a T-rex..." he spoke, "Tyrant won elections... spelling's changed... butterfly... must save it... cause of it all..."

Suddenly the Doctor covered his ears, shouting, as though some excruciating pain just went through his body. Both Brown and I had to help him stay on his feet.

"Are you alright?" Brown asked.

"What happened?" I wondered.

"There..." the Doctor was still recovering, "... there was a sound of thunder, then a tremendous pain."

"Must be the gunshot that wounded him." Lecter deduced.

Given how he sounded, I had an urge to make a remark, but thought better of it.

"From what I understood..." Brown started, "... he went on a time safari?"

"It's a means of leisure that humans will develop." the Doctor explained, "First, it will be to hunt dinosaurs, next to travel to Earth's greatest disasters."

"I've got to ask..." I started, but the Doctor wouldn't let me finish.

"There were a few rules he had to follow when he went hunting." the Doctor continued, "He disobeyed one of them and ended up stepping on that butterfly. It changed his world, and for that reason, his travel companions shot him."

"As if that would change anything." I remarked.

"Clearly he escaped." Lecter said.

"He's in the wrong period!" the Doctor suddenly exclaimed, "He stepped on the butterfly about 65 million years ago, and we're 105 million years ahead."

The Doctor dashed out of the room. Being curious about what he was up to, I followed him.


	13. Chapter 13

The Doctor returned to the console room, where he stopped dead again, as he (and I) saw Sattler complain to Crane about his irresponsibility, and Crane in turn was trying to convince her otherwise.

"What's going on?" the Doctor asked.

"Doctor Crane here dropped the jar." Sattler explained.

The Doctor's face burned up, "Where's the butterfly?"

"It flew out." Sattler answered.

"We tried catching it again..." Crane explained.

Sattler got more infuriated: "You mean I tried catching it while you were whining about..."

The Doctor stopped listening then, as he continued to run out of the Tardis.

"What's gotten into him?" Sattler wondered.

"Ask Brown and Lecter." I answered her, just before I followed the Doctor.

As we were both outside, the battle between Bandora and... I suppose Barzaa and his people, was still going on. The battle was so fierce, even the Doctor almost didn't seem to dare and move freely.

"I can only hope that the butterfly didn't get caught up in this battle." he said.

"Doc, there's something I don't quite understand." I started, "If this soldier..."

"Eckels." the Doctor interrupted me, "This soldier has a name."

"Right." I sighed, realizing the irony of the nameless doctor to remind me other people have names, "Anyway, whatever time period Eckels is from, how do we travel through time? Do we use portals, or machines?"

"Machines." the Doctor answered, "Why?"

"But I saw him arriving here through that anomaly." I reminded him, "So how..."

"That's the whole point." the Doctor explained, "Eckels must have seen the anomaly, didn't know any better and stepped through. But neither he or that butterfly are supposed to be here."

Suddenly, the Doctor paused. I didn't understand: "What is it?"

"If that anomaly is a portal through time, then that would explain why there are humans here." he explained, "They too must have come here through that anomaly."

"Doc, look!" I pointed at the fight.

Barzaa and his people were fighting a losing battle. They were down, which had Bandora gloat about her victory.

"Look at yourself." she spoke, "Did you pathetic people really think you could beat me!? You'll never beat me! Never!"

Suddenly, she started shifting her head, as if she was bothered by something. At the distance that I stood, it looked like a black dot moving from left to right. She started swinging her hand, as if trying to fight it. That Grifforzer guy tried helping her by swinging his blade around. That Dora Set monster, the humanoid bat and the gnome did the same. This gave Barzaa and his group an opening, so they could fight back, disarm and restrain all of them. Whatever it was that bothered Bandora, it flew in our direction. As it got closer, both the Doctor and me recognized it.

"It's the butterfly." the Doctor said.

"This isn't over!" Dora Set exclaimed.

What he said or did afterward, I'm not sure, but it somehow caused him to grow much larger. So large in fact, that it couldn't see where it was walking, and stepped on the butterfly. One doesn't have to be an expert to realize that being stepped on by that large a foot, nothing could survive.

"Dora Set!" Bandora shouted, "Don't let any of them whole!"

"Guardian Beasts!" Barzaa exclaimed, "Do your work!"

There was a loud stomping, which surprised even Dora Set. He turned to see a group of large animals charging at him. At this point, I thought I lost it. And how couldn't I have? The butterfly that was supposed to help save the world was killed. So if my mind would have me see five animals, each looking more mechanical than organic, each of them resembling the animals of those statues Huxley and I found (a tyrannosaurus, a mammoth, a triceratops, a sabre-toothed tiger, a pteranodon) and somehow even resembling parts of Daizyujin (the mammoth resembling his arms, the tiger and triceratops resembling his legs), my mind must have been trying to compensate.

"Something the matter, Narrator?" the Doctor asked.

"What?" I didn't understand his happiness.

"The butterfly did exactly what it was supposed to do." he explained, "It was supposed to fly through the anomaly, come here, distract Bandora, giving the people here a chance to fight back and capture her. It has fulfilled its purpose."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked him, "Because I'm not sure about anything right now."

"You're probably right." the Doctor answered, "I don't know how those machines can be here either."

I looked at him: "You can see them too?"

"Yes, they are real, if that's what you mean." he answered.

The giant machines fought Dora Set as best as they could, and eventually... somehow the tyrannosaurus made the ground break open, causing some kind of smoke to be released, which somehow desintegrated Dora Set.

"Fascinating." the Doctor said.

"I would share your fascination, if I knew what was going on." I replied.

"Well obviously, these people must be from a very distant future, where they had the technology to built all this." the Doctor explained.

"I don't know, Doc." I said, "That Barzaa guy called them Guardian Beasts. Doesn't that imply..."

"That they're more primitive?" the Doctor finished my sentence, "Maybe enough time has passed since building them, they have forgotten what they were originally."

That still didn't explain the resemblance to Daizyujin, which left me with too many unanswered questions still.

Once the Guardian Beasts left the scene, I heard Barzaa talk: "So, Bandora..."

I turned to look back. I saw Bandora and her comrads struggle to be released, but fail.

"For all your crimes, you have been sentenced to be locked for life." Barzaa continued.

"Hah!" she gloated, "I can live forever, you can't hold me until the day I die!"

"Then you'll be sentenced for all eternity." Barzaa corrected himself.

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Bandora kept gloating.

"If I may suggest..." the Doctor suddenly moved into the scene. I hadn't even notice him leaving me. I thought then that the coast must be clear enough for me to join them.

"Ah! The mystery man." Barzaa said.

"Just Doctor will do." the Doctor told him.

The Doctor kept talking with Barzaa, every now and then being interrupted by Bandora or one of her henchmen. I wasn't listening to them, as I suddenly recognized some of the faces I saw. I spoke to one of them.

"Geki?" I said, "How did you get here?"

"Er... do I know you?" Geki answered.

"You don't remember?" I asked, "Do you, Goushi?"

The one called Goushi was just as surprised. I asked the same of those that I recognized as Dan, Boi and Mei. And although I got their names right, none of them seemed to know who I was.

"Narrator!" the Doctor called at me, "They can't possibly know you... yet, remember?"

"Narrator?" Barzaa suddenly questioned, "Are you a story-teller then?"

"Er... among other things?" my answer sounded more like a question.

"In that case, I know how to repay you for the help you'll provide us." Barzaa turned back to the Doctor.

"Oh no, that won't be necessary." the Doctor replied.

"It's the least we can do." Barzaa added.


	14. Chapter 14

As promised, the Doctor helped these people get back on their feet. He let them know about a planet called Nemesis. Barzaa and his magic was enough to capture Bandora and her gang (of which it later turned out there was another member, who was too busy with sculpture to bother with battle) inside some kind of container. But to make sure she wouldn't even accidentally escape, the Doctor allowed Barzaa to know of a planet called Nemesis, which enters in our solar system's orbit every few million years (I'm not sure how that's supposed to work either), making it the perfect place for the container to remain, and which was exactly where Manhattan transported it. According to the Doctor, it would remain there until astronauts in the early nineties go explore the planet, and ignorant of what the container holds they'd open it and release Bandora. That's what he told me, but one of Barzaa's people overheard, told his comrades, which gave Barzaa the idea to train any volunteers to become much stronger warriors, who will remain in suspended animation for when Bandora escaped again. Other than that, Sattler shared some of her knowledge about plants with these people, so they could rebuilt... whatever little was left of the planet. But with our time spent on this, the people inside the Tardis, waiting for a show to watch, have been waiting for hours for it to continue. For this, Brown had a solution. We'd travel the Tardis back to a few hours earlier, where we'd take the Tardis of that time, allow the people inside to watch the rest of the show, then send them home, return the Tardis to that point in time where we took it, return to our own Tardis, so our past selves could find the past Tardis and use it to go back to a few hours earlier and do the same as we did.

Speaking of the show, it ended with telling us how the dinosaurs became extinct with the crash of a meteor. Hearing him, it made me wonder what the point was in us helping those people a few million years earlier, but then I figured if they weren't saved, we wouldn't be here to see this show. As devastating as the so-called KT-event was, it did give way for new life to begin. So I suppose, even from something as bad as this, something good can come.

Once the show was over, everyone was dropped off at their own time and place. The man who claimed to be Darwin seemed more than a little excited over what he saw. He made me wonder how he'd react if he went through the adventure that I had been through. The man that got in a discussion with Darwin, was excited too, but in a more negative way. To him, the show was a complete waste of time, and he won't rest until everyone who would make these shows were gone. I'm not too sure what he was going on about either, but I never got his name, nor did I recognize his face, although his outfit, vocabulary, and overall behaviour suggested he was from about the same time as I was, so if he were in any way shape or form doing exactly as he was suggesting, it's not working.

Once they were gone, the lot of us could return the Tardis to where we found it, after which we took our own Tardis and returned everyone else. By then, Eckels had recovered enough, so we could drop him off at his time machine, which he used to return to his own time.

Lecter was about to be dropped off at his own time, but just before he did, he had made himself a sandwich, using that meat he had found. He offered me some, but I refused. And after reading Barzaa's book (which was that gift he promised for helping him) I'm glad I refused. It mentioned how Bandora's son was found dead, killed by a dinosaur. Although, according to the book, his body was found, cut open, pieces of him gone, possibly eaten,... what else could be the cause of it? Bearing in mind that we stopped traveling a few years prior to our meeting with Bandora or Barzaa, and when Lecter presented the meat to us, I remember finding what looked like clothes. So putting the pieces together... I don't think I'll ever accept any offer of food from anyone, anymore.

Crane, as you can imagine, had completely lost his mind with everything. Seeing all these things happening so many years before he was born, it reminded him so much of his own mortality (and quite honestly, I don't blame him). But if anything positive did come from this, he had only just moved into Seattle, and wondered if he should try and reconcile with his father. He hadn't quite made up his mind about that, but realizing how short his life is, he had finally made his decision.

On a more positive note, the Doctor did mean to help Sattler gain new spirits, and it worked. She had found a new motivation for continuing her work. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said about Brown. He was about to leave the Tardis, but with a long face. I remember asking him about it.

"What's wrong?" I asked him, "You didn't enjoy the show?"

"It's not that." he replied, "It was great to watch the show, get my mind off my life's work for a moment, but... I still got my problem."

"What would that be?" I asked him.

"Well, when you're standing still, do you really think you are still?" he waited for me to nod, "Wrong. We may think we're standing still, but the planet is revolving around its axis, is in orbit around the sun, and the sun is in an orbit of its own. Traveling through time alone is not enough, I have to have my machine travel through space as well. I've tried everything, but nothing worked."

"Everything?" I wasn't sure I understood his problem completely.

"The only thing I haven't tried yet is using Newton's first law." Brown further explained, "An object that's in movement tries to stay in movement. If my time machine were somehow moving, it would be much easier for it to make the jump from one time and space into another."

"So what are you saying?" I asked him, "That your machine needs wheels?"

"Yes, something like that." Brown replied, followed by a short pause, where he smacked his own forehead: "Great Scott! Of course! Why didn't I think of that?"

"Er... I was kidding, Brown." I was trying to tell him.

"Thank you for your advice." he didn't seem to see the intended joke, "I won't forget it."

After him, Huxley was dropped off. Having discovered that there were people while dinosaurs still lived, he became determined to find clues about that. He couldn't just say that people lived back then and expect to be taken seriously, he needed evidence.

With all of them gone, only Manhattan had to return to his time and place. But before the Doctor could punch any of his controls, Manhattan had a request.

"Actually, Doctor, I want you to take me to Arizona, August 1959." Manhattan said.

"Really?" he didn't seem to understand, "Isn't that the day you... oh! Of course I will."

He did exactly as was requested. Once Manhattan was out, I asked the Doctor: "What's so special about that year?"

"It's the day that Jon Osterman became Dr. Manhattan." he answered.

"So what, he's going back to see his own birth?" I asked.

"And why wouldn't he?" he further explained, "He was in an accident that involved experimenting with atomic particals. It's complicated to explain to a layman, but what it comes down to is that he should not have survived that, nor should he have become who or what he is now."

"So you sent him back there so he could see what happened?" I asked him.

The Doctor laughed: "If he merely watched, he'd see himself die, shortly before disappearing himself."

I didn't quite understand at first. I was about to ask him what that meant, until a thought came to mind. I had seen Manhattan restore the body of a butterfly, I've been told he could change things to their molecular levels, so they'd become something else. In other words, if this Osterman that the Doctor mentioned shouldn't have survived the accident, and if Manhattan went back to witness his own birth, could he be...?

"You understand now, don't you?" the Doctor asked me.

"Damn." I exclaimed, "A time-traveling butterfly changing the fate of our world, a super-powered being is responsible for his own existence, Lecter's own..."

I stopped at the mere thought of that alone, which startled the Doctor: "What? What about him?"

I shook my head: "What I meant to say, it looks like our world wouldn't look the way it does now if it wasn't for time travelers."

"You don't know the half of it." the Doctor said this with an emotional tone, as though there was something more personal to it.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

The Doctor shrugged it off: "Are you interested in finding out more?"

The realisations that I had come to at the time were already too much to take in. On the other hand, the Doctor sounded as though I hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of it all. I could run away from it, but then the question as to what else there is would haunt me forever. So the choice was easily made.

"Sure, why not." I replied, "Can I er... rest a little first?"

"Of course." he answered, as he already started pressing a few buttons.

With this, I headed to that room where I first woke up. As I started, the Tardis started making its usual noise. I didn't know where we were headed, but I suppose if I knew that in advance, where would be the fun of finding out for myself?

**THE END**


End file.
